Cynthia goes back to school, Chris makes Captain, and all aboard an elegant fundraiser for Stratford aficionados

NO BIZ LIKE SHOW BIZ: Add Chris Evans the growing list of actors eager to play comic book heroes. Evans is now set to play Captain America … Avatar hero Sam Worthington,

DALE: master class-y

about to open in the epic CGI remake of Clash Of The Titans, will follow up with a thriller called The Fields … perhaps inspired by their colleague Al Pacino’s upcoming turn as suicide doctor Jack Kervorkian, Kevin Kline and Dustin Hoffman have both committed to upcoming HBO dramas … and Cynthia Dale, who guest stars as a drama teacher in upcoming episodes of Baxter, will go back to school next month to give the first Master Class to the Film, Musical Theatre and Drama students at the Etobicoke School of the Arts (ESA.), The school’s new Master Class program is part of a brand new film major program funded by Christina Jennings’ Shaftesbury Films.

WILDER: new book

NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: What becomes a legend most? A permanent gig in Vegas, apparently.  Barry Manilow’s new 90-minute show, staged by director Jeffrey Hornaday, has opened to rave reviews at the Paris hotel, where Manilow will play selected weekend engagements for the next two years. Hey, blame Céline, she started it. Next spring she’s set to return to the Colosseum — the massive theatre she built at Caesars Palace — for a new three-year (!!!) stint … Gene Wilder and his wife Karen are set to launch their new book What is This Thing Called Love? next week. And ex-Regis and current Today Show sparkler Kathie Lee Gifford has published a book for children, Party Animals (insert your own SNL joke here) …  coming soon to an HMV near you: the new Original Broadway Cast version of A Little Night Music with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury … and says Red Green (aka erudite funnyman Steve Smith🙂 “Get this, my wife just mentioned, and I quote, ‘All you remember from any conversation is what YOU said.’ At least I think that’s what she said.”

Is it any wonder that Red is the new Twitter toast of Facebook?

ANOTHER OPENING, ANOTHER SHOW: Looking for a reason to don your black tie finery on a Saturday afternoon in June? Nah, me neither. But here’s one Gala fund-raiser that might change your mind. It’s the Stratford Express, and it sounds like a great party to me.

KISS ME, KATE: Broadway brawlers

It starts at 3 pm on Saturday June 5 with a champagne reception at Union Station. At 4 pm your Private Train departs for Stratford, with cocktails and a gourmet served on board. At 7 pm, following a Welcome reception at the Festival Theatre, the curtain rises on an exclusive performance of Kiss Me, Kate, the big, bawdy Cole Porter musical about battling Broadway stars, with the killer score to match (Too Darn Hot, Always True To You In My Fashion, Brush Up Your Shakespeare, So In Love, etc. etc.) After the curtain calls you are magically transported, once again, to the Stratford Express for your return trip home, complete with cocktails, refreshments and entertainment. And yes, you can still order tickets! For more info, call Mary-Ann Reid at 1.800.561.1223, ext. 2425, or email her at mreid@stratfordshakespearefestival.com. And good luck!

TOMORROW:

All about Alice.

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Lily conquers Vegas, Bette plans a Showgirl exit, and meet the new Susan Boyle (he’s a guy!)

LOVIN’ LAS VEGAS: Don’t know why I thought that Lily Tomlin and Sin City were not a natural fit. Turns out they are. La Tomlin premiered her new

TOMLIN & WAGNER: Viva Las Vegas

one-woman show, Not Playing With A Full Deck, at the MGM Grand, and reportedly loves Las Vegas! Lily’s partner and personal muse, the unabashedly brilliant humourist Jane Wagner, is the mighty pen behind her new show as well as such previous Tomlin megahits as The Search For Signs Of Intelligent Life In The Universe and Appearing Nitely. Lily’s new show is a mix of Greatest Hits – the characters her fans still can’t get enough of, like Ernestine and Edith Ann – and new characters, and

SHORT: Damages control

new technology. Tomlin’s new show ‘try-out’ played in MGM’s Hollywood Theater, which seats about 2,000 people at each performance. And when Tomlin isn’t hanging out with her Big Business co-star and Caesars Palace headliner Bette Midler (The Showgirl Must Go On) or trying to coax Jane (“it’s come down to begging, really,”) into writing a new Broadway show for her, she’s commuting to New York to shoot her scenes in the new season of Damages with Glenn Close. In it she plays the matriarch of a powerful family determined to destroy shady legal eagle Close. Assisting Lily in this mission are Martin Short as her high-powered attorney and Campbell Scott as her son. And yes, she confesses, she and Marty did misbehave one day on the set, when

MIDLER: The show must go ... off

she read her lines as Ernestine and he did his as Ed Grimley. “But never when the cameras are rolling!”

THE SHOWGIRL MUST GO OFF: P.S. for Vegas-bound Bette Midler fans: Your heroine ends her two-year residency at The Colloseum – aka The House That Céline Built – on January 31. Says Bette: “These legs have had such a great run in the desert, it may be time to haul them to places with more humidity and fewer slot machines.”

GET OUT YOUR HANDKERCHIEFS: Yes, it’s true, the latest YouTube sensation is a recent audition for Simon Cowell’s British talent show The X Factor. The singer is a 40-year-old cabinet-maker named Daryl Markham. Markham has his own website now, and is now a household

MARKHAM: YouTube sensation

name for millions of people all over the world. But can he sing? You be the judge. To see his now-historic audition, just click here.

NO BIZ LKE SHOW BIZ: Leave it to Reg Hartt to find a copy of the sumptuous MGM musical Kiss Me Kate, with Kathryn Grayson, Howard Keel and young hoofers Bob Fosse & Tommy Rall competing for Ann Miller’s machine-gun taps., in — wait for it — 3D, its screen original format. Cineaste extraordinare Hartt unspools the classic Cole Porter musical this Sunday and next at 5 pm at his Cineforum HQ at Bathurst & College. Adds Reg: “Bring your own popcorn and we will zap it for you.”

WILLIAMS: ReelWorld decade

Hmmmm, wonder if Stratford’s Kiss Me Kate star Juan Chiorian, now on stage at the Factory Theatre in The Madonna Painter, has ever seen this version? … fan faves Colin Mochrie & Deb McGrath guest with Ron James tonight at 8 pm on CBC Television …  the Kate Rogers Band performs live tomorrow morning on CBC Radio One’s GO! Show. “Tickets are free and everyone is welcome!” sez Ms Rogers … speaking of tickets, you can still snag some for this weekend’s performances of the National Ballet’s spectacular Sleeping Beauty revival before it closes Sunday .. and can you believe that Tonya Lee Williams’ ReelWorld Film Festival, the little movie marathon that grew, celebrates its 10th anniversary next spring? Ms Williams, of course, is currently stationed in Washington, D.C. — on screen, at least — in The Border. And BTW, the ReelWorld call for submissions has already started. So if you have a feature, documentary, short, music video or animation from the Aboriginal, Asian, Black, Latino, Middle Eastern, South Asian or other multi-racial community, click here and fill out the submissions form.

Happy weekend!

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http://reelworld.ca/

Patti & Mandy team up again, Factory opens a Flu drama and Sue & Mr Schu get Glee-full off-B’way

BROADWAY BABIES: After they co-starred in Evita, she went on to recreate stellar stage roles at home and abroad in Sunset Boulevard, Anything Goes,

MANDY & PATTI: together in T.O.

Sweeney Todd and Gypsy and on screen in the hit TV series Life Goes On. He graduated to Sunday In The Park With George, made his mark on the big screen in The Princess Bride and Yentl, then scored a hit in three top-notch TV series, Chicago Hope, Dead Like Me, and Criminal Minds. But they always were, and still are, traffic-stopping singers who remain dream-come-true interpreters of Broadway’s greatest composers. The good news is, they’re together again at last, on a rare reunion concert tour. The better news is, they’re coming to Toronto. An Evening With Patti Lupone & Mandy Patinkin will rule the Royal Alex for one short week only, Feb. 9-14, and tickets are already on sale. So don’t say I didn’t warn ya. Because this will truly be a night to remember.

NO, NOT THAT MADONNA: After kicking off its 40th (!!!) anniversary season with Brad Fraser’s high-octane crowd-pleaser True Love Lies, Factory Theatre reportedly has another big winner in The Madonna Painter. After a

HUDSON: that's Mrs. Mandela to you

week of buzz-provoklng previews the world premiere of Michel Marc Bouchard’s theatrical parable, directed by Eda Holmes, opens tonight with a stellar cast including Bartholemew Fair scene-stealer Juan Chioran, who’s already set to headline the Stratford revivals of Kiss Me Kate and Evita next season. In Bouchard’s play, set in rural Quebec at the end of World War I, a village priest commissions a fresco dedicated to the Virgin Mary to protect his parishioners from a flu epidemic, and assistant director Cory O’Brien hints that the synergy between the premise of the play and our current H1N1 headlines was downright eerie. “Coughing rattles throughout the rehearsal hall,” he blogged two weeks ago. “Either our actors are overly ‘method’ or we’ve encountered a very strange coincidence. In a play filled with the ominous threat of the Spanish flu our cast has fallen sick. Stay home? Or come to rehearsal? Ginseng. Hand sanitizer. Cold formula tea. To get the flu shot or not to get the flu shot. That is the question.”

Should be fascinating to see who makes it to the stage tonight.

NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: Glee club guru Will Schuester (aka Matthew Morrison) and rabid cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester (aka Jane

MORRISON & LYNCH: Glee-full

Lynch) got together last week when Morrison stopped by the off-Broadway’s theatre to catch Lynch and Tyne Daly in the current Nora & Delia Ephron hit Love, Loss and What I Wore … Lisa Ray, currently being treated for multiple myeloma, is preparing for a stem cell transplant to treat her rare cancer. Next week the gorgeous star of Water and Bollywood/Hollywood starts a two-week procedure that involves releasing her own stem cells back into her blood to “reboot” her system before any further treatment … Jennifer Hudson will go to South Africa next spring to star in a screen biography of Winnie Mandela, the controversial ex-wife of Nelson … and L.A. audiences got an unexpected bonus last week when Dick Van Dyke joined the national touring cast of Mary Poppins for their curtain call at the Ahmanson Theatre.

TOMORROW:

Lily in Las Vegas

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